Natural splendour, real musics, wines, wordpower
(the “metaphorical” featured image shows climbers on what many believe to be the world’s tallest sheer rock-face…it isn’t)
This very poignant song was written a quarter of a century ago.
Its co-authors, separately, have recorded it, but the most celebrated version is a “cover”, issued 20 years ago.
None of those recordings quite “nailed” it, I think.
As of February 21, 2021, there is a “definitive” version, performed “live”…
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In the USA, it is currently “yesterday”, Tuesday, 11 May, 2021.
I hope that Carla Bley is enjoying a very happy birthday with her beloved, Steve Swallow.
For rather more than my entire adult life, Carla Bley has composed, arranged and played singular music, variously – sometimes, simultaneously – provocative, surprising, very amusing, satirical, sublimely lyrical, complex, seemingly-simple…
Her three most recent releases – all, new trio recordings of new music, made between 2013 and 2019 – are some of her finest, ever.
Comments closedIf the almost-titlepiece of Rhiannon Giddens’ new album were new to your ears, you would probably assume it was a venerable “traditional” song, probably from Appalachia.
Listeners who already knew many traditional Appalachian songs would likely be mightily surprised that they could have hitherto missed such a superb, particularly haunting one.
In fact, Calling Me Home was authored by Alice Gerard; it was titlepiece of her 2002 album, issued in the year of her 68th birthday. (An even better album is Follow the Music, which Alice Gerrard recorded – mostly “live” – in her 80th year)
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Direct quote from Indian Prime Minister Modi, crowing, in January 2021:
Friends, it would not be advisable to judge India’s success with that of another country. In a country which is home to 18% of the world population, that country has saved humanity from a big disaster by containing corona effectively.
Arundhati Roy, describing India’s ghastly pandemic reality in April 2021:
The system hasn’t collapsed. The government has failed. Perhaps “failed” is an inaccurate word, because what we are witnessing is not criminal negligence, but an outright crime against humanity.
Comments closedIf you are “new” to Anvil Beach, it would be a good idea – before you proceed further – to see/read its earlier post
This one is the fruit of a visit/swim (my beloved did all of the swimming) at the end of an unusually hot day.
The featured image, taken at 6.03 pm on 18 March 2021, shows Anvil Beach’s “anvil”.
One CommentNo sign yet of COVID:The Musical, but “the virus” has now yielded a superbly crafted song.
The context is British, but its precise skewering of the gap between self-congratulory “patriotic” government twaddle-speak and the pandemic’s reality rings true across most of “our” world.
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For the benefit of those who have not visited the Stirling Range…
The featured image and the one below – wide-angle and telephoto, respectively – look east from Toolbrunup’s east-facing flank, across to Bluff Knoll.
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At 1,159 square kilometres Stirling Range National Park is “large”, or “small”, depending on one’s perspective.
Four hours drive northwest, Perth – Western Australia’s sprawling metropolis – occupies more than five times as much ground.
The Stirlings’ “footprint” is less than one 209th of the United Kingdom’s 242, 495 square kilometres.
Botanically, however, the Stirling Range is much the “bigger”/“hotter” place!
It has more flowering plant species than does the entire UK; many of them grow only in or near the Stirling Range.
Two recent “catastrophic” fires seemingly “destroyed” much more than half of what had been growing there…
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…is surely one of “our” planet’s most wonderfully weird plants.
Kingia Australis is the only member of its genus, is not at all closely related to any of the other grass trees, and it grows (very, very slowly, over centuries) only in Australia’s southwestern corner.
Comments closedA big, rusting surprise was just one minute’s walk away from the house in which we recently spent sixteen nights – on a forested hill near Youngs Siding, in Western Australia’s Deep South.
This post’s musical complement: a singular treatment of an apropos Thelonious Monk number, plus the most tender song ever written about a car salesman….
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